Many artists are struggling whether they should release a single track or an album. Well, the answer is it does not actually matter. The key is in the playlists!
With streaming services getting more and more popular every day, it rarely happens that someone listens to a full album. Yes, the big fans of each artist will listen to their newly released album several times. But after a while, even those fans go back to their normal playlists.
So instead of concerning about having an album, EP, or single track, you should be concerned about releasing music constantly and make sure to place them on as many playlists as possible.
Editorial playlists
Among all the streaming services, Spotify so far has shown the most interest in helping independent artists promote themselves.
The “Spotify for artists” panel provides lots of useful tools for any artist with any number of fans and listeners.
One of the great tools that you can acquire using “Spotify for artists” is pitching your song to Spotify’s curators.
I’m not going to lie to you, it’s a long shot to get in any of the Spotify playlists, but there is a chance, and if you have enough stamina in creating music and pitching it to them, one day you will get in.
How does it work?
In order to pitch your music to Spotify’s editorial playlist, you need to have your music on Spotify before its release date. And to do that means you should give your music distributor enough time to upload your track before your release date.
Try to upload your music on your distributor’s panel, at least one month (the more the better) before your release date. On average it takes two weeks for your music to be uploaded on Spotify, this way, you’ll have your music on Spotify already two weeks (or more) before your release date.
Also, bear in mind that in order to pitch your song to Spotify’s curators, you need to give them almost two weeks. If you pitch your song, three days before the release, be sure, that it will not be chosen for any playlists.
So, let’s say you already have done it the perfect way. Your music is on Spotify but it is not released and you have more than two weeks to the release date.
Now you should log in to your “Spotify for artist” panel. Under the “music” tab, you will see a sub-category named “upcoming”. There you can see all your future releases that have already been uploaded to Spotify servers.
When your music delivers to Spotify, you’ll be able to see it there. You can add a canvas to your track, see the release date, and pitch it.
When pitching your track, there are some forms that you should fill out. Most of it includes technical data like the main instrument of your music. Is it vocal or instrumental? Is it a remix? Your hometown city, and so on.
The only part that needs attention is the last part, where you can write a description of your track.
There is much advice on how and what to write there. But I don’t think you can come up with a golden formula to write a description and have your music chosen. There is not only one curator, you don’t know who will check your track and how they like it to be written.
I might not be able to tell you what to write there, but I can definitely tell you what not to write there.
Avoid stating the obvious. Like the genre or the instrument of your music. You already gave them this data on the previous forms.
Don’t write about yourself, write about your music.
Avoid writing a resume, describe your music.
Don’t be boring. Write short and to the point.
As you are reading here, write bullet points, not long descriptions.
Just because you have 500 characters available, does not mean you should write 500 characters. Write as briefly as possible.
Some points to know:
For each Album or EP, you can pitch only one track at a time. The next time you can pitch a new track is after your release gets published. So it might be worth thinking, that if you don’t actually have a concept for an album and just have several tracks which you want to publish, it might be better to publish them as single tracks one month apart, so you can pitch each one of them.
Also, keep in mind that if you are releasing an album, the track that you pitch to Spotify will be the track that will appear in your follower's release radar playlist.
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